


Dinner at home

by belmanoir



Category: due South
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-08
Updated: 2012-04-08
Packaged: 2017-11-03 07:12:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/378710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/belmanoir/pseuds/belmanoir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's that time of the month, and Stella has cramps and isn't in the mood to cook.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dinner at home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [zabira](https://archiveofourown.org/users/zabira/gifts).



> Happy birthday!

"Fucking ovaries," Stella muttered, massaging her stomach with one sweaty hand as she stirred spaghetti sauce with the other. "Shit!" she said louder as her hand slipped on the spoon and hot sauce spattered across her white blouse. "Shitshitshit." Why hadn't she put on a goddamned apron? And why was it still so hot in the house? The sun had been down for hours.

"Everyone still got all their limbs in here?" Ray asked, wandering into the kitchen and watching her as she scrubbed at her blouse with a wet paper towel. 

"Yeah, Ray, and they still will in five minutes if you shut your mouth. I've got cramps."

He glared at her. "Then what are you slaving in the kitchen for? Get in the hot tub and let me finish dinner, for Chrissakes."

He made no move towards the stove, though. He knew she wouldn't take him up on it. It wouldn't be fair, after he'd spent the same long hours in the bowling alley she had, _and_ she'd spent most of that sitting down with the books, anyway. It was safe, and he came off looking like a model husband to boot. Ray'd pulled that trick a million times. See, he was already backing out the door without even waiting for an answer. "Fine," she snapped. "I will."

He froze. "Really?"

"You offered."

To her surprise, he actually looked pleased. "Well, yeah. I just never offered anything like that to anyone who'd let me do it before. I mean, you try getting Fraser to go easy on himself and see if you get anywhere. His back doesn't hurt--he's a Mountie! And you know, my ma's a little protective of her kitchen." He brushed past her, grabbing the spoon out of her hand, and tasted the sauce. He shook his head. "Polish girls never add enough oregano. What are you still here for, anyway?"

"Thanks, Ray," she said, ashamed of her bad mood.

"Yeah, yeah." He rummaged in the spice rack, ignoring her.

###

Stella loved Florida. Here it was, already September, and it was still warm enough to sit in the hot tub on the deck without her wet hair freezing to her scalp. And God, the water felt fantastic. Between that and being off her feet, her cramps were a million times better already. She slouched down and drifted. 

"It's not safe to fall asleep in the hot tub," Ray told her as he came out in his swimsuit with two wineglasses, balancing their plates on the flats of his arms. "You could drown. It's no picnic, drowning, let me tell you. Here, take this before I drop it and we gotta change out the water again."

She reached up for her plate of spaghetti and her glass. When he leaned over, his shoulders gleamed in the patio light, and despite being really, really not in the mood she felt a flare of arousal. "Do I really never use enough oregano?"

He balanced his plate on the edge of the hot tub and kissed her, and even though she was really, really not in the mood she still felt warm and relaxed and a little throbby by the time it was over. When he pulled away she tensed, because now she was going to have to explain that she didn't feel like anything, and it would be awkward, especially when he'd been so nice about dinner...

He climbed into the hot tub and kept right on with the conversation. "Yeah, but it's no big deal. You're still miles ahead of Fraser, believe me. The only things that guy ever served me were mealworms and canned marinara sauce." He shuddered, sending ripples across the surface of the hot tub. "Canned, can you believe it? Even Dief thought it was pathetic."

"Mealworms?"

He waved his hand. "Canadian," he said, as if that explained everything.

"Ray?" she asked, emboldened by the darkness and the hot water and, yes, the half a glass of wine she'd already managed to drink. "Did you and Fraser ever...you know...?"

He glanced at her suspiciously. "Is this gonna be a thing?"

She felt her eyebrows shoot halfway up her forehead. So they really had? And he was just admitting it? Just like that? "Why should it?" she asked, as casually as she could. "If Fraser doesn't mind my sloppy seconds, I don't mind his."

Ray laughed, sliding down into the water until his cross floated on the surface. "Then, sure, we had a thing. It's not a secret, I just thought maybe you'd rather not know, what with Kowalski and all--"

She would never understand what her husbands saw in that man--hell, what half of Chicago seemed to see in him. She'd been hoping, a little, that she was wrong and that Ray had been immune, too. She nodded. "Thanks for being honest with me."

"Actually, I was just making it up to make myself seem interesting," he said with a grin. "How'd you know, anyway?"

_Cops aren't the only ones who learn how to interrogate people_ , she thought, but she didn't say it. "Well, you know. You're always comparing me to him. Like just now, when you said my cooking wasn't as bad. Most people don't talk about their best friend like he was their ex-wife."

"Hey," Ray said firmly. "I am not comparing you to him. Besides, you got way bigger tits."

She snickered and stretched so her breasts showed above the surface of the water. Ray watched them with interest.

"If you weren't sky-high on Midol this would be a real different conversation," he said, shoveling the last of his spaghetti into his mouth. "Man, I'm not bad, but I gotta talk Ma into surrendering her secrets. That's the one thing I really miss about Chicago, you know? Dinner at home--well, I don't miss all the yelling, but I sure as hell miss the chicken marsala."

He talked like he'd never been out of Chicago. Like he'd been living at home eating his mother's cooking right up to the day she met him. She'd been wanting to say this for months now, and she'd already asked too many awkward questions this evening, but if she didn't ask soon she never would--"You never talk about Las Vegas."

There was total silence for a minute or two. Stella didn't have the nerve to look at him.

"Yeah, well you never talk about Kowalski," he said finally, sounding bitter.

"That's different, Ray," she said quietly. "It's not that I don't want to tell you. But Ray would hate it. He's already jealous of you. It doesn't seem fair."

"Well, of course he's jealous," Ray said, sounding a little mollified. "He only got you for twenty years, and I'm gonna have you forever."

Stella was touched. She'd actually meant, because of Fraser. That didn't even seem to have occurred to Ray. "Ray..." she said. "I'm not--I'm not looking for cheap thrills. But don't you want to talk about it sometimes?"

He shrugged.

She struggled on. "Ray used to tell me about all his cases--"

"Well, give the guy a medal!" Ray snapped. "He couldn't have been that goddamn perfect, or you'd still--"

"-- _and then he stopped,_ " she finished, raising her voice. 

"Oh."

"After I told him I didn't want kids. I guess he decided I wasn't it forever, after that, even if he wasn't ready to admit it yet, and he just didn't see the point of putting energy into--he didn't see the point of me." Unexpectedly, tears pricked at her eyes. _It's just hormones,_ she told herself. She felt cold, even in the hot water. She'd be warm if she could just shut the hell up and let Ray put his arm around her, but--she needed to hear his answer more than she needed to be warm. She wrapped her arms around herself and slid a little further away from him. She looked up, though, and he was watching her, his eyes shadowed and his mouth crooked.

"Look, Stella, it's nothing like that, okay? Just, I'm dealing with it. No reason you should have to deal with it too."

"No reason I shouldn't," she said, sharper than she meant to. "You don't have to protect me, Ray. I'm not your mother or your sister or"-- _or your wife_ , she almost said, but she was. She couldn't find a word for the kind of wife she didn't want to be. "We're supposed to share. I'm not--I'm your _partner_."

Ray's eyes narrowed abruptly.

She waited, heart in her throat, for him to say she wasn't, that she never had been or would be, that she didn't understand what it was like out there--but she _did_. Did he think it was easy being a Chicago ASA? Did he think she'd never been afraid? Did he think she'd never been shot at? Did he think she'd never fucked up a case and got someone killed?

"Yeah," he said finally. "Yeah, okay. Partners." And he held out his glass for her to clink.


End file.
